This paper investigates the variables driving the demand for life insurance in Tunisia based on annual macroeconomic data spanning the period from 1990 to 2014 and collected from the Swiss Reinsurance company and the World Bank's databases. We provide a characterization of the Tunisian life insurance sector and a comparison to some emerging markets. Empirical results show that life insurance demand increases with income and financial development. However, other economic variables such as inflation and interest rate do not seem to influence life insurance consumption in Tunisia. Socio‐demographic variables such as dependency, life expectancy at birth and the country's level of urbanization stimulate life insurance demand, while the level of education dampens it. Finally, pension expenditures have a negative effect on life insurance consumption confirming the substitution by social security system for private insurance.

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This paper uses a Dynamic Conditional Correlation Model to examine financial contagion phenomenon following the American subprime crisis. This model, which is developed by Engle (2001Engle ( , 2002, Engle and Sheppard (2001) and Tse and Tsui (2002) as an original specification of multivariate models' conditional correlations, allows tracking correlation evolutions between two or more assets. Our sample consists of six developed countries, including the crisis-originating American market, and ten emerging countries. Data frequencies are on a daily basis reflecting the January 3 rd 2006 to February 26 th 2010 period. The obtained results seem to point to an amplification of dynamic conditional correlations during the crisis period which stretches